My First "Team-Up"

Byrne joined Claremont beginning with The X-Men No. 108 (Dec. 1977). Their work together (along with inker Terry Austin) on such classic story arcs as the "Dark Phoenix Saga", "Days of Future Past", and "Proteus" would make them both fan fa

vorites, and X-Men became one of the industry’s best-selling titles. In addition, Byrne insisted that the title keep its Canadian character, Wolverine, and contributed a series of story elements to justify his presence that eventually made the character among the most popular in Marvel's publishing history. Byrne has repeatedly compared his working relationship with Claremont to Gilbert and Sullivan, and has said that they were "almost constantly at war over who the characters were."[10] After more than three years on Uncanny X-Men, during which time he created the character Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat,[11] Byrne left the title with issue No. 143 (Mar. 1981).

The Untold Story (HarperCollins, October 9)

THE X-MEN's indisputable star attraction was the beer-guzzling, cigar-smoking Wolverine, whose gruff loner persona offered a romantic archetype onto which introverted readers could project their own solitary existences. Behind the scenes, Chris Claremont and John Byrne hashed out the kind of intricate character origins that might be employed by a dedicated method actor: Wolverine was old enough to have fought beside Captain America in World War II, they decided, and his father was Sabretooth, a villain who’d appeared once in Iron Fist. But instead of disclosing these details, they slowly parsed out clues to the excruciated and enraptured audience that reveled in the mystery: Why does Wolverine speak fluent Japanese? Is “Logan” his first name or his last name?

Not since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s FANTASTIC FOUR had a single title contained so many interconnected characters, so many mini-mythologies. Over long months Claremont and Byrne teased their readership with revelations that Professor X had wandered through Egypt after the Korean War; that the interplanetary pirate named Corsair was actually Cyclops’ long-lost father. In one issue, Byrne rolled out a whole team of super-powered Canadians at once, so colorful and varied they seemed instantly ready for their own title. The group, named Alpha Flight, was a clue to some kind of Canadian government experiment that had given Wolverine his claws…but for the specific circumstances, well, the readers would have to stay tuned.